Veil of Souls
Still More Butterfly Tales : the Veil of Souls is the fifth book in the Butterfly Princess series of e-books by David Graham Edwards. It was published in December 2019. Synopsis With Four and Mariposa gone, their remaining friends are no match against the sorceress, Deorwynn. Arienne, Wazzipaloo, Jessyka, and Jenna flee her volcano base, though the others do not fully trust Jenna, a former agent of Deorwynn. The sorceress sends her bounty hunters, Brian and Mirabel, to kill the group, unaware that the bounty hunters have broken free of her control. At the butterfly camp, Mariposa's child, Gusano, is determined to find his missing mother at all costs. Archer and Slingshot realize his rulerships is erratic without Mariposa to guide him, and Archer plots his demise. Elsewhere, Four and Mariposa, still in the Old Age and in deep cryogenic stasis, find themselves trapped within the dreamsphere. They are assisted by illusionary figments of Syzygy and Talla Unica and Christabel, created by their own dreaming minds. They realize they are in stasis and must awaken, or else they will remain asleep forever, passing beyond the veil of souls. After some debate, Arienne's group decides to go to the Elvenwood to warn the Elves about Deorwynn. En route, they are intercepted by Brian and Mirabel, who offer an allegiance with them against Deorwynn. Brian believes their best bet against Deorwynn is to seek the help of Forever the dragon in the Swordedge Mountains. They travel to the Elvenwood to ask Elladan for safe transport. The group is catapulted via torsion launcher towards the Swordedge Mountains, but the group is separated and Jenna disappears completely. Brian and Mirabel speak to the dragon, but it's Christabel living there now and not Forever. She refuses to help, but she does give Brian the piece of armor that he lost durng his visit to the Old Age. Brian and Mirabel realize that it wasn't a future time they had visited to hunt down Four and Mirabel, but the past. If Brian's armor has survived, they wonder if Four and Mariposa could have somehow survived as well. The group visits the wizard Tha'aron to seek advice. Tha'aron knows of no means by which a living creature could survive the transition from the Old Age to the New Age; only the keystone scepter could focus a magic-user's power sufficiently to divine this knowledge. Tha'aron gives Mirabel the moonstone, which he dismisses as a worthless bauble, but which the group realizes is the first piece needed to rebuild the keystone scepter. Also, Mirabel steals the wizard's cat, Hissy-Fitt. Jessyka and Wazzipaloo find Jenna in a hole in the ground created when she landed. This, along with several other incidents, leads the crew to discover that Jenna is in fact a golem created by Deorwynn, enchanted to look and feel human. The crew elects to keep this a secret from Jenna. Arienne reaches out with her telepathy and makes contact with Mariposa, but she has no way of determining where Mariposa might be. Mirabel and Brian, who are in love with Four and Mariposa respectively, volunteer to allow Arienne to cast a magic spell that will amplify their existing heartlink so they can determine their location. They travel to the Badlands, the source of the Cataclysm, where they encounter and battle a mutated Ogre. They discover the damaged body of Syzygy, who had used his lower half to hold open an emergency door to the laboratory where Four and Mariposa are in stasis. He leads the group to the laboratory, where Jenna attacks the group. She is frozen solid with cryogenic fluid. Syzygy operates the machinery to revive Four and Mariposa. He also revives the child Talla Unica, whose stasis pod has malfunctioned; instead of keeping her in suspended animation, she has aged into an adult. Syzygy reveals that Birthday Jones-Smith was also put into stasis, but that her body did not survive, and all that remains of her is her computerized neurosphere. Four initlally attacks Brian and Mirabel until they explain they have switched sides. With no means of escaping the deadly Badlands, the group sends the unliving Jenna, along with the head of Syzygy, to Torlynn Castle to try to find an airship that could rescue them. Jenna encounters a goblin scavenger named Guzzler, who leads her to the Endeavor, a flying stone fortress buried beneath the castle ruins. Endeavor ''rescues the group, and Four begins his search for the other pieces to rebuild the keystone scepter. They stop to pick up supplies, and recruit a four-armed Giantess named Fairweather. With Mariposa's pregnancy making her more powerful than ever before, Four plans to give the scepter to Mariposa so that she can destroy Deorwynn. Mariposa, meanwhile, wants to negotiate with Deorwynn and arrive at a peaceful resolution. The crew votes on who will command the ship, and Four wins by a narrow margin. At first the group is tactful when it comes to their acquisition of the crystal fragments, but as time grows short and the threat of Deorwynn looms, they become more and more careless. During one mission, a museum is destroyed. During another, a town guardsman is killed. Eventually, a group of soldiers from a local military academy try to stop the ''Endeavor crew, but Deorwynn sends a team of moth warriors to kill the military students so that the Endeavor crew can continue unimpeded. Mirabel's love for Four grows so strong that she realizes she can longer remain on board. She disembarks, but is imprisoned for the crimes the crew has committed. She meets Jax in prison and befriends her. When Endeavor ''returns to free Mirabel, the ship takes Jax along as well. Four's obsession with acquiring the scepter becomes so strong that members of the crew, led by Arienne, attempt a mutiny. Jax warns Four of the plot and is ready to kill the mutineers. Mariposa discusses terms with Arienne while Four is thrown in the brig. The decision is made to put Mariposa in charge. When the thunder dragon Dreadnaught attacks the ship, Jenna sacrifices her life to save the rest of the crew. After Jax celebrates the victory, an angry Four, incensed at the loss of Jenna, kicks Jax off the ship. Talla Unica tries to warn Four that people will die if he confronts Deorwynn, but he proceeds with his plan to rebuild the scepter without Mariposa's approval. When the entire castle-ship is drawn towards a floating island, one of the wizards who originally dismantled the scepter taunts Four, who still has no idea where the keystone scepter actually is. The scepter is later revealed to be on board ''Endeavor, in the hands of a suit of knight armor that Syzygy has been wearing. Armed with the completed scepter, Endeavor returns to the Forgotten Basin. Deorwynn unleashes an army of undead cadavers that she has magically reanimated. The crew battles their way through, losing Jessyka, until they make it inside the volcano. A battle ensues in which Arienne is killed and Four's neurosphere is ripped out of his head, rendering him unconscious. Mariposa pleads with Deorwynn and offers her peace, but in response, Deorwynn emits a magic burst at close range that kills Mariposa's unborn child. Enraged, Mariposa uses her magic to tear Deorwynn into tiny pieces and then collapses. In the aftermath of the fight, Mirabel and Guzzler seek help for Four, while Brian and Fairweather travel to the butterfly camp to try to find help for Mariposa. Jacket Copy The evil skull-faced sorceress, Deorwynn, has become unstoppable. Siphoning the blood of innocent victims, using it as an endless supply of fuel for her dark magic, she intends to raise a powerful army that will grant her the ability to conquer the enchanted realms of Novapangaea. Only an ancient jeweled scepter capable of enhancing and focusing the magic of those who oppose her might possibly counter her devilish sorcery. The only one who could use such a potent weapon is Mariposa, the Butterfly Princess, who has vanished without a trace along with her beloved Four and the clairvoyant Talla Unica. Their remaining friends quickly realize they may never succeed alone. It falls to Mirabel, Brian, Arienne, Jenna, and the others to begin their most desperate quest—joined by newcomers Fairweather the four-armed giantess and Guzzler the goblin—in which dangerous secrets are revealed, allegiances are tested, and lives are lost as they scour the globe aboard a mysterious flying castle which seems to depend on the positive emotions of its crew in order to function properly... Trivia An alternate title considered by the author instead of The Veil of Souls was The Power of the Keystone Scepter. Book five is 179,900 words in length, the second-longest in the series thus far. The series will continue in Oh No, Not More Butterfly Tales: The Invasion of the Thought Stealers. Category:Books Category:Real Life Things